


Together Or Not At All

by Nelioe



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Not Related, Ambushes and Sneak Attacks, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fever, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, Minor Character Death, Trying to survive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-23
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2018-08-24 04:56:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8358190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nelioe/pseuds/Nelioe
Summary: Groups meant safety. Groups meant greater success when it came to looking for supplies in a world that tried to recover from destruction. This was what Fili and Kili had learned over the years. But after an ambush they have to realise that groups can be just as deadly as keeping to oneself.Written for FiKi week.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first story written for FiKi week.
> 
> Prompt: Sun, 23 Oct: ~~kingdom~~ or **love**

 

 

“Did you hear that?”

Fili wasn’t given the time to ask what it was Kili believed to have noticed between the trees, when a gunshot made them wince. One of their companions plunged to the ground, drawing horror to their faces. Seeing Kili’s shocked expression, the blond wanted to plant himself protectively in front of him, but he wasn’t given the time to take even one step towards him, before men broke through the undergrowth.

There were many people out here, waiting for other’s passing buy, hoping to steal their supplies. The world was dangerous, traversed by fear, revealing only the worst in the most desperate. This wasn’t the first time they were attacked, but the first time they had to face actual guns.

Kili killed the first with an arrow, ere their enemy was able to point the weapon at Fili’s head, giving the blond the time to unsheathe his knife.

“Take cover!”, someone of their group screamed, but with the noise if the blood rushing behind his ears, Fili wasn’t able to recognise the speaker.

It didn’t matter anyway. His legs began moving, carrying him to the safety of a tree, noticing in the corner of his eye how the others followed the order as well. A bullet pierced into the bark, causing it to split. Fili ducked his head as if it could protect him from possible ricochets. His heart pounded painfully fast inside his chest while the shots continued for some time, cutting through the quietness of the forest and echoing in the uninhabited region.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five… again… again… again… Fili counted at least seventeen shots until the silence reclaimed the forest. His sweaty hand grasped the hilt of the knife tighter, while he tried to calm his breathing. A glance to his right revealed Kili hiding behind another tree, arrow nocked and ready to draw the string. Worried eyes met his. Swallowing hard Fili nodded to Kili, when the first approaching footsteps reached his ears, the brunet returned it.

They waited, allowing their attackers to come closer, switching the roles. A droplet of sweat ran down his brow, over the bridge of his nose, towards the corner of his mouth. Fili didn’t even think of wiping it away, concentrating solely on the man on the other side of the tree. Pressing his lips into a thin line, his features took on a grim expression, the tension that seemed to lie in every fibre of his being only waiting to be released. Behind the tree someone was reloading their weapon. Fili choose that moment to react.

Leaving his cover, Fili wheeled around, ramming the knife into the enemy’s abdomen. The man was barely given the time to scream, the air pressed from his lungs by the sudden pain. In a smooth motion he abstracted the gun from the weakened grip. He didn’t need to know how to aim at such a short distance.

The recoil of the gun and bang of the shot made him flinch. Hurriedly he jumped back behind the tree, testing the weight of the unfamiliar weapon in his head. Fili wasn’t given the time to catch his breath, as another shot resounded between the trees.

Blindly, the blond fired into the direction of the attackers. Hitting them or just scaring them, both options sounded pretty well in his head, as long as he and the other members of their group survived this ambush.

Someone screamed. If he’d been hit by one of Fili’s bullets or faced a different fate, he couldn’t say. Every now and then his eyes scanned his surroundings, looking for enemies trying to bypass his cover, ere he fired another salvo at their assailants.

“Retreat! Retreat!” a panicked voice shouted over the noise of the fight.

There was rustling, another bang, the scream of an injured man, fast footsteps and cracking branches. By the sounds they seemed to flee, it could be a trick, though and so Fili and the others stayed hidden, listening carefully. The soft breeze, whispering between the leaves appeared to be their only companion now.

“Bill, Tom, check the perimeter! Make sure it’s safe!”

Fili couldn’t see Braga from where he was still hiding, but sighed with relief. He and the other two seemed to be alright. Hopefully Kili was well, too. Fili hadn’t seen him after they had started to fight back.

Waiting to get an all clear, Fili finally wiped the sweat from his face. Simply to discover that it wasn’t sweat that had run down his face. Staring at the back of his hand and the traces of blood in disbelief, the blond began to feel for a wound. He hissed once he found a gash on his forehead. The adrenaline running through his body during the attack had completely numbed the pain. When did this happen, though? He hadn’t been in a hand-to-hand combat, but acted from ambush… unless the splintering bark had hit him.

Well, there was no point on dwelling on it. As long as it was just a cut he would be fine. At least wondering about the origin of the wound had distracted him long enough to calm his heartbeat, allowing him to take a deep breath and to shake the trembling from his limbs. The shock, of how close they had come to getting killed, would wander through his bones like a disease if he didn’t fight for control. With disgust he threw the gun to the ground, just when Bill and Tom called out an all-clear.

Slowly Fili rounded the tree and left his cover.

His eyes spotted Percy immediately. The bullet had killed him instantly. Fili grimaced. Poor sod. He hadn’t known him well so far, but he’d seemed to be one of the kinder and more reasonable people. Not like Alfrid, always trying to manipulate Braga and the others. Percy was a good guy and now his life had been ended, just because some bandits wanted to steal their supplies or whatever the reason for this cowardly ambush had been.

“Is anybody hurt?” Braga demanded to know.

It was their procedure. Check the perimeter. Check for wounds. Check the supplies. Continue walking.

The question was met with negations and Alfrid claiming he had been seconds away from being killed.

“Here.”

The group whirled around to spot Kili, limping towards them. The first wave of relief at seeing his friend alive ebbed away, as Fili spotted the shaking right leg. Hurrying over to him, the blond helped him to sit down, causing Kili to grimace and a groan to be ripped loose from his throat.

“Sorry,” Fili apologised immediately.

The way his friend was holding his leg, breathing becoming erratic, could only tell him as much. Kili had to be in immense pain.

“Let me see,” pushing the hands away, he tried to catch a glimpse at the wound below the trousers. “How did this happen?”

Fili could hear the others shuffling closer, perhaps to have peek at the brunet’s leg, as he flinched away from Fili's touch. He didn’t blame him, it was a reflex that was hardly controllable, yet he had to secure the leg with his other hand to inspect the wound.

“That guy,” Kili inhaled sharply, when Fili’s fingers touched too close to the injury. “That bald guy with the opaque eye shot me.”

And indeed, there was a small hole in trousers, pointing at a small gunshot wound just above the knee. It wasn’t bleeding that badly, probably because the bullet was still inside.

“Bastard,” Fili cursed.

It was one of the worst situations he could imagine, being the only one to treat a hurt companion, a friend, a lo-…, long friend he liked to call brother. But someone had to do it and Fili was the only one with at least some knowledge about medicine. Having been chosen for this field of work right after his birth, he had never complained about not having a choice, was even grateful for the basics he had learned, when everything broke apart, knowing he would be of use somehow, right now though, he wished someone else could take this burden from his shoulders. Kili was in pain as it was, the last Fili wanted was to add to it. If he wanted to help him, however, there was no other way to treat him.

“I need the scissors, some of our alcohol and the painkillers. Someone make a fire and boil some water, so I can sterilize the forceps,” Fili told the others, in his head already going over how he would’ve to proceed.

“Stop what you are doing!” Alfrid’s strident voice echoed over the trees.

The guys that had tried to follow Fili’s order stopped, every set of eyes turning to Alfrid, who was wearing a mask of regret and seriousness. The blond suddenly was overcome by the urge to hit a couple of the other’s yellow teeth out.

“As tragic as the situation is, we can’t waste our supplies on him.”

“Waste?” Fili exclaimed incredulously.

“We all know how dangerous even the smallest cut can be. Think of what happened to Esgar.”

At the mention of Hilde’s husband, dark looks crossed the features of the other men. He had died of infection, a simple cut at his arm slowly killing him. Fili, already sensing what Alfrid was planning, wasn’t going to accept this nonsense just like that.

“You can’t compare these situations. When Esgar got hurt we had no supplies at all. Now we have and we need to treat Kili fast, who knows if those bandits will return with back-up!”

Alfrid simply seemed to straighten at Fili’s protest, if that was even possible with this hunched back of his.

“Exactly! We have supplies right now, but we never know when we will be able to stock them up again. We need to use them carefully. Clean our cuts and not use them on a lost cause,” the slimy arsehole replied, making a dismissive movement of his hand.

“On a lost cause? Our painkillers are ten times better used on an injury like that, than on one of your petty headaches! Now do what I told you, we could already be done, if it wasn’t for your selfish whining!”

“You can clean the forceps and the wound, but who knows how many dirt got already into the wound with the bullet! He can’t be saved and we shouldn’t waste any of our supplies on him.”

“I will show you who’s a lost cause!” Kili hissed furiously, trying to struggle to his feet, but Fili gently pushed him down again.

“Don’t,” he said soothingly. “You might only make it worse if you move too much.”

The brunet groaned once again, but complied.

“He’s got a point, though,” Braga interrupted their fight. “Our supplies are scarce, we need to be careful on how to use them. We don’t know how long stocking them up could take us, it could be days or month’s until we find another colony ready to help us. Using them on someone who will die of infection-“

“He isn’t going to die!” Fili snapped.

Why was everyone assuming Kili couldn’t survive his injury? They hadn’t even tried treating him yet and were already giving him up? It was bullet to his leg, he could still walk, so the chances that the shot hadn’t caused any major damage were high. His friend would make it, if they just allowed Fili to do his work.

“You don’t know that,” Braga shot back.

“So you will do what?” Fili asked with shock. “Force him to come with us untreated, so infection can set in for sure?”

“To waste food and drink on him as well?” Tom scoffed.

Fili’s eyes widened, his gaze wandering from one man of their group to the next, hoping for some support in that matter. But they all seemed as if they had swallowed Alfrid’s scare tactic.

“I will share my part of the supplies with him, if need be!” he tried to sway them.

“We can’t have you losing strength as well,” Braga replied.

“Oh, but you can withhold them from Kili? Our archer! The one, who hunts and has kept us alive that long in the first place!”

Had they lost all sense of decency and wits? Everyone tried to contribute their share and most of the time it had been Kili’s skill with the bow that kept them fed at the end of the day. They wouldn’t have this discussion if Bard was still here. Under his lead compassion had still been written with a capital C. When the moment had come and one of the colonies they had met offered to accept Bard and his children, as well the pregnant Hilde, as part of their community, Fili had been happy for them. Right now he wished the sensible man back at his side. This was madness!

“We will just have to make do without his abilities,” Bill said gruffly.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“They are going to leave me behind,” Kili whispered.

The blond turned his head sharply, looking at his friend in disbelief. The younger man’s features were rid of the pain right now, instead shock and helplessness predominated.

“You are going to kill him!” Fili addressed the group.

Pleadingly he looked at Braga, hoping against all odds he would finally see reason again and stop this nonsense that had somehow managed to get out of control. The other’s sad expression told him to expect no help from him, though.

“You know how these things work, Fili. You two are longer out here than most of us.”

Yes, they were longer out here than any of the others, but that had also taught them one thing. Sticking together was what saved your life.

After the nuclear fallout Fili and Kili had grown up in a bunker like most people that had survived. The days were always scheduled, no one was allowed to work against the prescribed daily routine. Love was allowed, children not. Only when the bunker could handle another mouth to feed, a woman was obtaining permission to conceive. That weren’t necessarily couples, though. To avoid incest certain woman were impregnated via in vitro fertilization and the sperm donation of a man the chief of the medic team chose.

From the day of their birth, their future job within the community was determined. Until then the community raised the children together. Fili and Kili met in school and had been inseparable from day one. They lived like that until a couple of months in their jobs, when the bunker was attacked and the people there forced to flee.

With the air clean and the radioactivity gone, they survived their escape, but after that had to learn how to survive in a cruel world, in which greed and fear of starvation dominated the acts of mankind. Fili and Kili had stuck together, always supporting each other and found ways out of every critical situation, because they could rely on one another.

This was the reason why they were still alive. The two of them. Together. Always.

Fili slid his backpack off, throwing out all sorts of supplies that exceeded his personal share. The rest of the group watched him with surprise, as the blond looked up to glare at them.

“I will stay with Kili,” he declared.

Immediately Fili could feel a solid pressure at his arm, gripping him tightly.

“Fili, don’t,” the brunet told him urgently, but he merely shook his hand off, tilting his head slightly, so he could look at his friend.

“No, together or not at all.”

“Fili, think about it again. You are both as good as dead, if you stay with him,” Braga tried to argue.

He almost wanted to laugh. They were ready to leave Kili for dead because he was wounded, but didn’t want to go on without him. This was ridiculous. Without Kili he was as good as dead anyway. Fili would never abandon his Kili. After spending his childhood with him, growing up together and with the years feeling his heart speed up at the most beautiful smiles another man could gift him, Fili had known that there was no other for him. Kili was his heart, his soul, the reason he still fought against this cruel world and got up in the mornings.

“You’ve made your decision and I’ve made mine,” he told the other’s fiercely.

Braga looked at him for a moment, as if trying to figure out if he was serious. Eventually he lowered his head in acceptance and gave his companions a nod, ordering them to pack up, what Fili had thrown at them.

“I’m sorry,” Braga said.

Fili didn’t care. His compassion for those people had left in the moment they had chosen to leave Kili behind. When the others set off, he wasn’t watching them go, rather ripped one of his shirts to shreds, so he could bandage the brunet’s leg with it.

A breathy cry slipped past his friend’s lips by the time the knot was tightened.

“Sorry,” Fili apologised, wincing with sympathy at the ashen complexion.

“You know,” Kili panted, fighting against the waves of agony, “if you leave now, you might still catch up with them.”

Shooting the younger an angry glance, Fili cupped the brunet’s head in his hands, forcing him to look him in the eyes. The dark brown orbs were lined with pain and a thin layer of sweat covered his brow.

“We are a team, Kili. I’m not going to leave you. I don’t care about the others, so you better stop mentioning it, because I’m staying with you.”

For a second it seemed like his friend wanted to protest after all, but instead his fingers suddenly touched the blond’s brow, reminding him of the stinging just above his eye.

“Does it hurt?” Kili asked him softly.

“It’s nothing, just a scratch,” he reassured him, aware that he had to look like a mess with traces of blood covering his face.

“You should still wash it and cover it, just to be safe.”

“Look who is talking,” Fili replied teasingly.

With their meagre supplies now, they couldn’t waste their water on a cut like this. He had stayed with Kili, knowing that it would most likely mean both of their deaths. Nevertheless, he wasn’t going to make leaving this world easy.

Casting a worried glance over their surroundings, he was reminded of their terrible location. They should get going before the friends of those attackers returned.

“Do you think you can walk?”

If Fili had to, he would carry him, but since it seemed like they would have to pace themselves, he wanted to prevent it, if it wasn’t absolutely necessary.

“Sure!” Kili asserted, but his face went completely white, once Fili had pulled him to his feet.

For a second he feared his friend might pass out and took a step closer, ready to catch him, should he fall. Kili recovered a little while later, though and so they set off, heading in a different direction as the rest of their former group, Fili walking slowly and Kili limping along.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

On the next day the edges of Kili’s wound were covered in an angry red colour and warm to the touch. With worry Fili noticed the swelling, while the brunet tried to laugh it off. What he wasn’t able to hide, however, was the fact that he was no longer able to put weight on his injured leg and so the blond decided to support him, pulling one of Kili’s arms over his shoulder and wrapping his own around his friend’s waist.

In the evening, with Kili at the end of his rope, Fili decided that he had to get the bullet out. The brunet didn’t complain, when he was handed a belt. Without protest he put it between his teeth and watched the blond with scared eyes, as he sterilized a knife over the fire.

The sound of Kili’s tortured screams was never going to leave Fili, it was burned into his soul, just like the tears running over the face of the person he loved most on this earth, elicited by the pain Fili caused him. That night Fili choose to go hungry and fed every last morsel to Kili, who was almost delirious with the ghost of the agony gripping his leg and therefore didn’t argue at all. At least the bullet was out. A small relief.

On the morning of the next day, Kili threw up. It seemed as if someone wanted to taunt his decision.

The brunet blushed with embarrassment, a colour that seemed healthier on his exhausted features, and voiced his regret profoundly, riddled with apologies.

Kili staggered more than on the day before. Around noon his lids fluttered shut. Fili assumed it came from the wound and dehydration and used the break to feed his friend small amounts of water over the next hour. He looked too weak to continue walking nonetheless and so the blond put the silent promise into action and carried Kili.

In the evening they reached a river. Fili could’ve wept with joy, it was giving them the opportunity to refill their water supply. Their stock of iodine drops was big enough to rid the water of all kinds of pathogens, at least dying of thirst wouldn’t be an issue for now.

The bad news were that Kili didn’t seem like his stomach could handle food and so Fili had to give up coaxing him into eating with a frustrated sigh. Pulling his exhausted friend into his arms, he let him fall asleep, while he kept watch as long as his eyes managed to stay open.

Despite the cold night, Fili awoke feeling warm. It confused him at first, ere he felt awake enough to realise that Kili was having a fever. Unwrapping the wound, his heart fell. The skin around the bullet wound was swollen and looked painful to the touch. Pus dripped from the hole in Kili’s leg.

Closing his eyes, Fili swallowed hard. They could’ve avoided it. Getting the bullet out, using the alcohol… Kili wouldn’t have to lie in his arms, feverish and dead to the world, if the others had just allowed him to use their supplies to help his friend.

Fili boiled some water and tried to keep the wound as clean as possible, but his hopes were waning with every day Kili’s condition grew worse. In this state he wouldn’t continue walking with him. He needed rest, time to recover… if he could even recover from this.

Wrapping his arms around his friend, Fili pulled him against his chest, cooling his brow with a wet cloth, while hot laboured breaths left Kili’s lips.

He couldn’t say how long he sat there, in the shadow of an old oak tree with the gurgling of the river to drown out his own heartbeat, pounding fearfully inside his chest. Of course Fili had known that this situation was what awaited him, when he chose to stay with Kili, but expecting it and feeling the brunet suffering in his arms were two very different animals.

“Fee,” Kili slurred all of a sudden, yanking Fili from his thoughts.

Hurriedly, although without jostling the brunet too much, Fili leaned closer to Kili’s face, close enough to feel the heat radiating from his skin.

“I never… never had the courage to tell you,” he forced out. His tongue seemed to have trouble following his command or it was simply his difficulty breathing that hampered his speech.

“Tell me what?” Fili asked him softly, trembling while agony tried to rip his soul apart.

He felt so helpless. There was nothing he could do to ease Kili’s pain. His friend was dying in his arms.

“I… I remember that music lesson like… like it was yesterday. We… we had to prepare a… a song and you… you sang that one about the fire and… and there was so… so much longing in your voice for… for a world you had never seen and…  that moment I knew that… if you ever went to explore this world… that I wanted to be with you… that… that I always wanted to be with you.”

There was a tear escaping at the corner of Kili’s eye. Fili wiped it gently away with his thumb, trying not to grimace at the glazed look of the brown orbs. Was the fever getting worse?

“I love you, Fili,” his friend sobbed.

At first Fili couldn’t do anything but stare at Kili as if he’d suddenly grown a second head. Then… so very slowly… the meaning of his words started to seep in. Kili loved him. He returned his feelings. Unrequited fears morphed into wanted longing. Kili felt the same, loved him back and was now lying here, burning like one of the pipes in the bunker.

The day he had sung about the fire and night sky was many years ago. How long had they nursed their feelings in silence, deeming it wrong to say them aloud, while the other struggled with the same desire? So much time wasted. While he would never regret any second of having Kili as his friend, it was now hard for him not to become bitter. They could’ve soothed the aches in their hearts and could’ve lived a more fulfilling life, so that when they reached this day, there wouldn’t merely regret sit in his chest. Regret of having what he always dreamed of, but to watch it soon being taken from him, without offering him a taste of its sweetness.

“I’m sorry,” Kili voice wrenched him away from his frustrated thoughts. “I couldn’t help it.”

“Oh! No, no, no!” Fili tried to soothe him hurriedly. “You have nothing to apologise for.”

As carefully as possible, the blond leaned forward and captured Kili’s feverish lips in a tender kiss. He didn’t want his friend to have any doubt that Fili was feeling the same way. And while he had imagined their first kiss to be different, – less clumsy and with the brunet being a more active part in it, – it was perfect nonetheless. The softness, the warmth, it was all Kili and despite their dire situation, he could’ve sworn that his heart did a somersault at the impact.

“I love you, too,” he whispered against Kili’s lips, seeing him close his lids with contentment and a small, exhausted smile raising the corners of his mouth. It was the little brother of his usual smiles, but still blinding in its own way.

Kili fell back into a fitful sleep not much later, as if all of his strength had been drained by his confession. Fili continued to keep watch, to hold him, to calm him when he seemed lost in a frightening feverish dream, fed him water whenever he believed Kili would accept it and stroked his sweaty hair affectionately.

It took until the sunset for Kili to awake once again. His gaze wandered over his surroundings, a furrow of confusion forming between his brows, ere he noticed Fili’s strong arms around him. His love smiled, exhaling a laborious breath.

“I had… the most wonderful… wonderful dream,” he babbled, part of the syllables mingling.

“Tell me about it,” Fili asked him.

He was so glad to see him awake again. It kept his hopes alive that Kili might pull through. He was strong after all, if someone could overcome an infection, it was him. Fili brushed the brunet’s burning temple with his lips.

“You kissed me.” Kili trembled softly in his hold. “And said you loved me back.”

That moment, Fili allowed himself to cry for the first time since they had to flee the bunker.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

There were voices drawing near. Footfalls in the undergrowth that could no longer be drowned by the gurgling of the river. They were close. Far too close for Fili’s liking. Meeting people in a world like this meant danger almost every time. Colonies were rare, but the people usually armed and with some sort of moral code. Out here were mostly bandits or unfortunate people like their group, looking for a place to settle down, a safe haven, before the supplies ran out, although groups could be just as terrible as the men waiting to ambush people passing through their area. Just because they weren’t lying somewhere, ready to strike, didn’t make them any less desperate, when it came to stocking up their supplies.

In Fili’s arms Kili shivered. He hadn’t woken up again, just mumbled unintelligible under his breath and wouldn’t take any of the water the blond tried to coax down his throat. The fever was devouring him. He was dying. And Fili had no way of saving him.

He was so tired. Worrying for Kili, trying to keep watch despite his own exhaustion… Fili was withering, but he would be there for his friend… for the man he loved and protect him as long as he was drawing breath. Aware that the end was awaiting them since the moment the group decided to leave Kili behind, Fili wasn’t going to move from his spot. It would be of no use. So instead he pulled out one of his knives, while the other hand still pressed Kili to his chest.

The footfalls grew louder. The hand, gripping the weapon, shook.

Armed men left the safety of the forest, heading to the river with huge jerry cans. They had two push cart trolleys with them, probably to transport the weight more easily, although it had to be difficult to use in the forest nevertheless. Three of them were carrying rifles, observing their surroundings, while the other four grabbed a can and hurried to the water.

One of them, a young man with red hair, crossed their hiding place and plunged the can all the way into the water. Fili’s clenched his jaw, pressing his lips into a thin line as he kept his eyes glued to the stranger. His arm rose, bringing the knife protectively between the stranger and the precious load resting against him, even though there were still about a dozen metres separating them. His grip around the hilt was so tight, his knuckles began to turn white.

The redhead heaved the can out of the water with a grunt, screwed the top on and turned around to return to his group. His eyes landed on Fili and a startled scream was ripped from his throat. Immediately movement went through his companions, calls echoed over the treetops and fast steps were coming closer.

“Ori!” someone screamed. “Are you alright?”

A couple of heartbeats later, Fili found himself surrounded.

“Go away!” he snarled at them.

Another man with red hair stepped into his vision, reaching for the man he’d called Ori and grasped him by the shoulders, looking him over as if he feared him to be hurt.

“What happened?”

“Nothing, he just startled me,” Ori explained, staring wide-eyed at the strange pair huddling under the tree.

All of them were looking at him and Kili now. Fili’s gaze darted from one to another, waiting for an attack. One rifle was aiming at his head, the tattooed man that held it raised to his shoulder didn’t appear like he would hesitate to shot for even a second, should Fili dare to move the wrong muscle.

The others seemed surprised, curiosity in some of their eyes, wariness in others.

“Leave us alone!” Fili hissed.

“What are the two of you doing out here on your own?” another man asked. He was carrying a rifle as well and while it wasn’t aimed at Fili’s head, it hadn’t lost any of its threatening character. Dark hair traversed by silver lined his stern features.

“That’s none of your business! Just piss off and leave us alone!” Fili snapped.

His hand gripping the knife was trembling worse with every passing minute. The pounding in his chest felt as if it was going to burst his chest with fear every second now. Why wouldn’t they just leave? They were no threat. Surely they wouldn’t feel pleasure in killing two dying men, would they? What were they even? Bandits? A group? Part of a colony? No… no, they couldn’t be a colony. They hadn’t come across anyone in days even before Kili got injured. But this left him only with two options, neither of them to Fili’s liking.

The redhead, who had remained beside Ori until then, spotted his backpack on the ground. Shouldering his rifle, he took a tentative step towards it. Fili wanted to leap forward at the sight, but the barrel aiming at him and Kili in his arm stopped him.

“No, please don’t,” he begged, voice cracking. “That’s all we have left.”

As if pleading had ever done anything good in a world that had seen the apocalypse on mankind’s own hands and somehow managed to survive. They were completely at the mercy of this group and greed was always so much stronger than kindness. Still, this backpack was his only hope, should a miracle occur and help Kili to pull through.

And as always, begging wasn’t helping them this time either. The man took the backpack and began to rummage.

“What’s in it?” the dark haired man, probably the leader, asked.

“Not much. Two bottles of water, rusk, dried fruits, iodine drops, clothes… not enough to survive long on it.”

The face of the other darkened as he returned his gaze to Fili.

“Are you part of the bandits?”

“What?” Fili gasped. “No!”

“You better don't lie!” the one aiming at him growled. “Why would you wander around with so few supplies?”

“Our group left us behind after we were attacked! I swear! Please, just leave us alone! We won’t cause any trouble!”

The leader examined him intensely, perhaps attempting to figure out if Fili was telling him the truth, while the blond could merely return his gaze, willing him to understand that they meant them no harm, that they simply wanted to be left alone.

Finally, after what felt like thousands of little deaths strung together, the stranger nodded and the rifle stopped aiming at Fili’s head.

“We continue!” he called to his companions.

The backpack was thrown thoughtlessly to the ground, as the men went back to their tasks. Except for one of them, reaching for the leader’s arm, when said one wanted to turn around as well.

“Thorin,” his hissed urgently, “the lad is wounded.”

A silent conversation seemed to emerge between them, turning Fili’s relief into another fit of anxiety. Were they going to kill them after all?

“Fine,” the man called Thorin sighed.

The other nodded and moved over to them. Fili didn’t hesitate, pointed his knife at the approaching guy and stopping him in mid-motion.

“Don’t come any closer!” the blond warned him.

“Put that weapon down!” Thorin growled. “Oin is a doctor, let him have a look!”

 _A doctor_? Fili’s lips formed the words silently, his arm becoming heavier and heavier with every second he kept it raised like that and at last, he gave up. They hadn’t a real choice anyway. As much as a part of him wanted to hope for a miracle, the more rational part of him knew that Kili was lost without help. A doctor certainly couldn’t make it worse than it already was.

Oin didn’t wait for him to change his mind and kneeled down next to them.

“Where is the wound?”

“His right leg,” Fili answered hoarsely.

As an answer he received a nod, and then skilled fingers began to unwrap the makeshift bandage. Oin gasped with shock, once the injury was uncovered. An unpleasant smell came from the wound.

“How did that happen?”

“We were ambushed… and Kili was shot and… the others… they wouldn’t give me the supplies I needed. They said it would be wasted on him,” a sob was torn from his throat.

The exhaustion, the crashing adrenaline… everything gave way for the emotions of desperation and anger he had tried to keep inside him. Now nothing stopped them. Tears were running down his cheeks, as he let go of the knife in favour of hugging Kili close. How was he supposed to go on, if he lost the only person he cared about in this world? How was he supposed to bear it? Fili was already feeling so alone without the brunet’s voice to distract him from the dark thoughts whispering within him.

“Thorin, the lad needs antibiotics as soon as possible.”

“Can we spare them?” Thorin wondered doubtfully.

Oin grimaced, but then looked at Fili with such a serious expression, the next sob died inside his throat.

“Tell me, my boy, what is it the two of you are good at? How would you contribute to a community?”

“I…,” he cleared his throat. “I know the basics about wound care and medicine. Kili knows how to hunt. He uses a bow. He works silently and has always kept us fed, when the situation was dire.”

Facing their leader once again, Oin said: “We can spare the antibiotics.”

And Thorin nodded.

 

 


End file.
